


It's Been A Long, Long Time

by Queer_Screams



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blow Jobs, Bottom Bucky, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Dirty Talk, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Makeouts, Songfic, Top Steve Rogers, blink and you'll miss it d/s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 18:23:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1909095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queer_Screams/pseuds/Queer_Screams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The song seems to follow Steve everywhere, before and after the ice. Just like Bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Been A Long, Long Time

**Author's Note:**

> Based off my usual post-movie soundtrack obsession. It's Been A Long, Long Time was released in 1945, which doesn't work with the timeline I wanted because they're (kinda) DEAD BY THEN. So this fic requires a bit of suspension of disbelief.
> 
> So much thanks to [Becca](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FalsettoFetish) for being a beta at home and long distance, correcting an embarrassingly basic grammatical mistake, and crying/yelling at this more times than anyone should have to.

Bucky sets up their old record player, his eyes closed and his body swaying as the big band starts playing. The curtains are closed, and for the first time in days they're completely alone. His grin can't be contained. Looking at Bucky with complete freedom is as close to taking a deep breath of air as Steve has ever known.

_“Never thought that you would be/standing here so close to me,”_ Bucky sings along, sauntering closer to where Steve is seated on the bed. Steve laughs a little, but he can feel his chest tingle with anticipation and appreciation, basking in Bucky's glowing gaze and the amber light filtering through the lampshade behind him. Bucky's singing voice isn't exactly amazing, but his gravelly tone certainly feels amazing, rumbling through Steve's bones. Bucky continues, _“There's so much I feel that I should say”_

“It's been two days, Buck,” Steve admonishes, smiling and cutting off the verse.

“Forever,” Bucky insists. He takes Steve's hands, dragging him from the bed and pulling him close. Their bodies are apart, but so close that it's almost as good as if they were touching. “Two days-” One hand falls to Steve's waist, almost spanning his entire back. The other cups Steve's neck, twisting into his hair and gently bringing their foreheads together. Bucky is hunched over enough for Steve to grab the collar of his shirt, his fingers pleasantly curling between the soft cotton and the smooth, hard lines of Bucky's collarbones, “-with Rebecca right there, never gone for long enough to even get one kiss. Too long. Forever.”

“You love having your sister visit, jerk,” Steve mutters.

“I love you,” Bucky retorts.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve replies, but he's smiling fondly, and rising up on his toes to press their lips together.

_so kiss me once then kiss me twice_

_then kiss me once again_

It starts playing in a bar in the middle of war-ridden Europe, and their eyes connect for a few more seconds than is wise in public. Steve can't turn away from the haunted look in Bucky’s eyes, their familiar warmth tinged with a chill that Steve wants to eradicate from his friend forever. It's late, the rest of the commandos have stumbled to their bunks, and they manage to make it somewhere private before the song stops playing in their ears. That's an advantage to being Captain America that Doctor Erskine hadn't mentioned- Steve has his own housing on base, and, while they have neighbors, the walls are a hell of a lot thicker than they were in their apartment in Brooklyn.

They're careful to walk apart and casual as they make their way through the base, ever the image of close friends, war heroes taking a well-deserved break. They go so far as to joke and laugh a little bit too loudly as if they're drunk, and Bucky puts on that swagger that Steve loves and hates at the same time. It's like watching half the parts of Bucky that Steve fell in love with smothering the other half of him, denying them air. He's still not used to seeing Bucky from this perspective, as though looking down and to the side at his best friend changes the way he understands him. He wonders if Bucky was always this breakable and he'd never noticed, or if this is something new.

When they make it to the room and the door is locked securely behind them, Steve kisses Bucky hard, desperation struggling to break free. He's pressing Bucky against the wood, hips pinning them together, realizing that his strength is good for something more than fighting, and his head is dizzy with desire and possibility.

“I've been waiting so long to get my hands on you,” Steve mutters, and Bucky makes a _mewling_ sound that is so unprecedented that Steve pulls back, searching Bucky's face for a sign of what he needs. Bucky lets Steve's gaze rest upon him, but he doesn't open his eyes, and his body shivers under Steve's grip. His breath is shallow, and after a moment he looks slowly up at Steve through his eyelashes, a slight smile playing on his swollen lips.

“What are you waiting for then?” he asks, gasping a little.

“Buck,” Steve groans. He buries his face in Bucky's neck, kissing the rough scrape of stubble and the salty tang of hot skin as he lets his hands wander from the tight muscle of Bucky's biceps to his back, gripping shoulder blades for a brief moment before resting on Bucky's ass, and Bucky's breath hitches. Their erections press closer together, a few maddening layers of their freshly pressed uniforms dulling the sensation just enough that Steve can still focus on the words he really wants to say. “I didn't think I was going to see you ever again.”

“I was always gonna come back to you,” Bucky chokes. There's a weight in Steve's chest. He knows he doesn't need to say it. They both know it isn't true, know how close it really was- and it still feels like they haven't escaped that threat.

“I'll always get you,” Steve replies, and he means it.

“I'm supposed to be the one to take care of you,” Bucky says. He's trying to be playful, but Steve hears the regret in his voice. “That's what I'm here for.”

“You're here for a lot more than that, Bucky.” Bucky makes a sound in response, a bitter laugh that doesn't quite reach his eyes. “No, really,” Steve brings his hands up to cup Bucky's face. “If you think I kept you around this long just for your sub-par nursing skills, you're dumber than I thought.”

“Hell, I'm a great nurse,” Bucky retorts. He smiles, and Steve should be embarrassed by the way it makes him feel like he can breathe again.

“The best,” he agrees. “You're the reason I'm here.” There's no end to what he means by that, from the simple fact that there were winters he wouldn't have survived without Bucky, to the overwhelming fact that his very desire to do good is forever tinged with desire to do good by Bucky. But he doesn't elaborate.

“So are you gonna fuck me, Captain, or are you gonna bore a hole in this door with your soulful eyes?” Bucky asks, eyes glinting mischievously. He wraps his arms around Steve, completely unsurprised by the surge of energy that meets his words, the way Steve picks him up like he weighs nothing, crushing their mouths together and making short work of the buttons on Bucky's jacket as he walks them towards what Bucky can only assume is the bedroom. It had better be the bedroom.

“My eyes are _not_ soulful,” Steve insists. He drops Bucky on the bed, watching with approval as Bucky leans back on his arms and, after a second, deliberately spreads his legs a fraction.

“Well I've heard from the dames on base,” Bucky teases. Steve shucks off his boots before climbing onto the bed, over Bucky. “And they're definitely soulful.”

“Oh shut up,” Steve replies.

“Yessir,” Bucky says, so quietly that Steve wouldn’t have been able to hear him before the serum. The words coming out of Bucky's mouth are _doing things_ to him. Still, he needs to focus on the task ahead of him, narrowing in on one fact at a time so that he doesn't fumble at everything all at once. Bucky's shoes are still on, in fact most of his clothes are still on his body when they should really be on the floor, and Steve is going to fix this. Bucky doesn't sound too pleased when he first pulls away, but his tone of displeasure turns to a groan as Steve moves down his body. Steve doesn't let it distract him as he takes one of Bucky's boots in hand, methodically undoing the laces and pulling off the shoe. This is where Steve feels like he belongs, crouching between Bucky's feet, finally staring up at him again, doing everything he can for him and feeling so _powerful_. It's a rush a thousand times better than any super-strength or super-speed or anything else could ever give him, and Bucky gives it to him in the way he waits, with impatient but unwavering anticipation.

_“Haven't felt like this my dear since can't remember when/it's been a long, long time,”_ Steve sings softly, so quiet it's almost humming. Bucky's intense, dark blue eyes are locked to Steve's, but his hands are busy working at his belt buckle, sheets rustling underneath him. Their eye contact breaks as Bucky pulls his white t-shirt over his head, and it's worth it for the view Steve gets of his best friend laid out in front of him on his bed, dog tags resting on his chest, hard and defined. It's the tags, really, that lead Steve's eyes lower, until he finds himself staring unashamedly at the way dark lines of hair cut between Bucky’s hips and disappear beneath the waistband of his underwear, the undone front of his pants. Bucky follows Steve's gaze down his chest with a cocky smile.

“Missed me?” he asks, one of his hands trailing down to lie at his hip. Steve is barely out of his reach. Steve just rocks forward and nips at Bucky's hand. Bucky inhales sharply, and Steve nuzzles his hand out of the way to get to Bucky's hipbone, biting it playfully and grinning to himself at the throaty sounds Bucky makes in response. Steve pulls at the elastic of Bucky's briefs with his teeth, completely failing to move them from their original position but making a very satisfying sound when they snap back against Bucky's skin. Bucky makes a frustrated noise and lifts his hips to shrug off the last of his clothing. It's a flurry of movement for a moment, limbs and fabric catching on each other in hilarious ways, but when his pants have been successfully thrown to the floor there Bucky's cock is, hard and flushed and remarkably close to Steve's face.

“So much,” Steve answers before taking the cock into his mouth, and he's not sure why the SSR decided that Captain America shouldn’t have a gag reflex, but he's not complaining as the taste of Bucky washes over him and he instinctively loosens his throat, taking him all the way.

“Fuck, Steve,” Bucky groans. Steve can feel his whole body trembling, trying to hold back. He pulls off for a moment, looking up at Bucky and wiping a string of saliva from his mouth.

“You don't have to worry about hurting me anymore, Buck,” he says. His breath ghosts over Bucky's cock, and it twitches. “You can't break me.”

“Supposed to take care of you,” Bucky repeats, but his hips are straining upward, his cock wet with pre-come.

“Then let me take care of you. Same thing,” Steve says. Bucky has no immediate retort, which makes Steve smile. He grabs Bucky's right hand, still lying next to his hip, and guides it to the back of his head. Their fingers intertwine in Steve's hair, and he only pulls his away as Bucky tugs him back down. The head of Bucky's cock pushes through Steve's lips and Steve lets Bucky be the one to take it further, each stroke bringing Steve a bit lower down the shaft. He breathes deeply through his nose and closes his eyes, willing Bucky to take him exactly how he needs. Bucky pushes him all the way down, Steve's lips grazing wiry hair at the base, and Steve moans. He couldn't do this before, always wanted to, always panicked the moment he started to lose his breath. But now he's not panicking, and clearly he had a reason for wanting this, because Bucky is making unholy sounds above him, and Steve widens his mouth so Bucky can thrust in and out, fucking his throat while Steve grips his thighs so hard they're sure to bruise.

“So good, Stevie,” Bucky pants. “God, you feel so good, love your mouth so much, fuck.” He's getting close, the energy in the room electrifying as he tenses. Steve hesitates for a moment, and he wants so bad to make Bucky come, imagines the taste of his come filling his mouth and the look on Bucky's face as he swallows it down for the first time, but he knows that isn't how this is going to happen. Bucky asked if he was gonna fuck him, so that's what he's gonna do, and he wants Bucky aching for it just as much as he is. Steve puts his hands on Bucky's hips with just enough of his strength behind them to make it clear that Buck isn't the one making the decisions, and slowly pulls off of his dick, hollowing his cheeks for suction that has Bucky whining as he writhes ever so slightly and so ineffectually against Steve's hands. “You hate me,” Bucky says, but he's out of breath and laughing and laying back in acceptance.

“Oh, you think so?” Steve says, not really a question at all. He changes position, straddling Bucky's naked body, and Bucky makes a face as he realizes that Steve is still fully clothed, and it's the least fair thing in the world. Steve starts taking off his shirt, grinding lazily on Bucky, the coarse fabric of his pants making Bucky suck in a breath through gritted teeth.

“You hate me for sure,” he confirms. Steve leans over and kisses Bucky, soft but hot, his bottom lip dragging against Bucky's obscenely as he draws back. Bucky's hands follow him, grabbing Steve's bare lower back and refusing to let go. Steve doesn't move them, savoring the feeling of fingertips and blunt nails digging into muscle. So often he feels impervious to everything physical, like there's a barrier between him and the real world now. But Bucky can always touch him. He rocks against Bucky once more before finally working at his pants, freeing his dick from his briefs with a sigh- which might be closer to a moan- of relief. Bucky licks his lips, probably without noticing he's doing so, and Steve groans again. They haven't had a chance to really do anything since Steve changed. Too little time, too little privacy. Yeah, they've managed a couple of quick hand-jobs, under the pants, hands held tightly over mouths and the radio playing to disguise the noise, but the only time Bucky has laid eyes on Steve minus clothes is when they’ve been in the showers in camp.

Steve's cock dips downward and grazes the head of Bucky's, and Bucky's back arches beautifully. “Damn, Buck,” Steve murmurs.

“Just get me ready already,” Bucky grunts.

“Jacket?” Steve asks, and Bucky groans, looking around the room. His jacket was off before they made it through the door.

“Goddammit. Yeah.”

“One second,” Steve says, and he's up remarkably fast, back and pulling a small jar of vaseline out of the inside of Bucky's jacket in no time. He pulls Bucky to the edge of the bed and kneels on the floor, gently kissing the soft skin of Bucky's thigh as he opens the jar and gets his fingers slick. Bucky gasps and clenches as Steve reaches up, a single finger swirling around his hole. “Relax, Buck,” Steve soothes. He waits until he hears Bucky's breath settle a touch before pushing into the tight ring of muscle, only up to the first knuckle, waiting for Bucky to adjust.

“It's been a long, long time,” Bucky laughs, and Steve laughs too, his hand shaking slightly. His finger twitches inside Bucky. “More, Stevie, please,” Bucky keens.

“I'm bigger than I used to be,” Steve cautions, but he slips another inside, and Bucky gasps at the sharp pangs of stretching around the curl of Steve's fingers.

“Yeah, I'd noticed,” Bucky bites sarcastically. “I was kinda looking forward to that, you know.” Steve concentrates on Bucky's body, slowly scissoring inside him, picking up the pace until Bucky is panting.

“One more,” he reassures Bucky, slipping out for a bit more vaseline before he adds a third finger, shifting up on his knees to get better leverage and letting his thumb absently play with Bucky's balls. “Think you're ready?” Steve asks, and Bucky just lets out a strangled laugh. Steve waits, slowing his movements. “Are you ready for me, Bucky?” he asks again. “Are you stretched out enough for my cock, for me to push inside your tight hole and take you like I've always wanted to, hard and long and fast?”

“Fuck, Steve,” Bucky whimpers, and Steve knows he's almost there.

“That's not an answer,” he says, and smacks the inside of Bucky's thigh. Not too hard, but hard enough for Bucky to jump.

“Yes, Steve, god, I'm ready, please fuck me, so close,” Bucky mumbles desperately.

Steve pulls out his fingers, moving Bucky back on the bed so that he can cover his body with his own. “Good boy,” Steve growls into his ear. Bucky shivers, and Steve uses one hand to guide himself into Bucky, his other hand cradling the back of Bucky's neck and head, his forehead pressing against Bucky's collarbone. Fuck, Bucky is tight and slick, and Steve's hips struggle to stay steady as he rocks into him. Bucky is groaning deep, his brow is furrowed but he's thrusting back at Steve, dick leaking pre-come onto his stomach. “Am I big enough for you, Bucky?” Steve asks, his voice deep.

“Everything about you is enough,” Bucky answers, out of breath.

“Let me know if it's too much,” Steve says, picking up his pace as Buck loosens under him.

Bucky laughs. “No such thing,” he says, and he sounds needy, he sounds like he wants to be overwhelmed. Steve can do that for him now in a way he never could before, so he does, slamming into Bucky, flush against him, Bucky's cock straining against Steve's abdomen. It isn't as hard as he could go, but it's hard enough to feel like he's releasing something, something that's been inside him for a lot longer than he's looked like this.

“Fucking love you,” Steve grunts, and Bucky reaches up to grab Steve's dog tags, pulling him into a sloppy kiss. Steve doesn't stop, one hand spanning the small of Bucky's back as he arches up to him, rolling deeper and harder into Bucky, and the bed frame is definitely hitting the wall with each thrust. “Thought I lost you,” he gasps into Bucky's mouth. “Killed me, Buck.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and it's the first time he's admitted it, his face open and scared and overflowing. “Me too.”

“I won't let it happen again,” Steve insists.

“You'd better not,” Bucky agrees, and smiles as he brushes away a tear with the back of his hand. “Because we're getting home together, and we're doing this every. Single. Day.” He grins.

“Looking forward to it,” Steve replies, letting his left hand trace Bucky's cheekbone as he shifts the angle of his hips, and Bucky almost yelps, seeing stars. Steve laughs. “Oh, I'm going to make fun of that noise for the rest of your life,” Steve warns.

“I don't care, just don't stop,” Bucky breathes. Steve repeats the movement, holding his hand up to Bucky's mouth. It smells like vaseline and sweat and pre-come, but Bucky licks it without question, his tongue wide and wet, lips wrapping around a finger and sucking at it as Steve pulls it away. The sight hits Steve hard, so dirty and perfect. He increases his speed, and Bucky is clenching around him, and he's getting close, and he takes Bucky's cock into his hand, squeezing tight at the base before starting to jerk him off. “Gonna come, Steve,” Bucky warns, his voice breaking. Bucky is thrusting at him, his rhythm stuttering and manic.

“Then come,” Steve tells him softly, twisting hard at his dick, and Bucky cries out, curling up to bite at Steve's neck, legs wrapped around his back like a vise, come hitting their chests in hot ropes as he shudders.

Bucky is damn beautiful like this, every inch of his body gravitating towards Steve, and he _came_ for Steve. No matter what they've lost so far they still have this, and Bucky moans “Stevie” as he comes down, and it's _them_ , and Steve is coming, letting his arms fall out from underneath him as he collapses into Bucky, emptying himself into Bucky.

Their bodies are molded into each other, and Steve closes his eyes for a moment, resting together until Bucky moans and makes a feeble attempt to push him off.

“You're way too big to do that now, you know,” he says.

“Oh, _now_ I'm too big,” Steve kids, rolling onto his back with a sigh. “You didn't seem to have a problem with it a minute ago.”

“Pretty sure I wasn't having coherent thoughts a minute ago,” Bucky counters, out of breath. He rolls onto his side and lets a hand rest on Steve's chest, his feet twisting around Steve's, intimate and relaxed. His eyes are serious as he looks at Steve. “I love you too, you know,” he says, like there's a chance Steve hasn't figured that out yet. “I loved you before and I love you now. That's not ever gonna change, no matter what.”

The welling in Steve's chest is so complete it blocks out all thought. He wants to respond, wants to tell Bucky how much he loves him even when he's not in the middle of fucking him, wants to say something, anything, that will imprint on Bucky's mind for all those times when Steve can't be there himself to remind him. But it's too much, so he kisses him soft and slow, hoping Buck can feel everything he can't say just yet, knowing they'll have time for it all to come to light. Bucky sighs deeply, and they're both fighting against eyelids that refuse to stay open, and without saying anything they ease against each other and fall asleep.

_but words can wait until some other day_

After the rush of descent, the aching blow of impact, and the shock of submersion in freezing water, Steve's body still fights, even as he wills it not to. He shudders and takes in water, and how appropriate it is, his lungs struggling to provide until the end. He sinks, and ice creeps against his skin, and he shouldn't be alive anymore, but he is. It won't last long. A brass band rises in his heart, and Bucky is talking to him, the memory of his cadence flowing through his bones even if recollection doesn't deliver his words. In what he knows to be his last moments, hundreds of tons of ice and water and impenetrable time drown out all sound, real and imagined. The ice is the loudest silence that has ever filled Steve's ears. The cold creaking of shifting glaciers surrounds him, compressing the remnants of his consciousness.

_it's been a long long time_

 

First, Steve lives in Brooklyn. He doesn't know where else to go, doesn't know how else to be. Of course, everything about it is wrong. His familiarity, something that had been such a natural part of himself to the point where it felt like a bond between his heart and the city's streets, turns out to have been conditional. In this time, in this body, it isn't Brookyn anymore. Without Bucky, it certainly isn't home.

After the Battle of New York, SHIELD's request that he relocate to D.C. doesn't seem like such a bad idea. He doesn't have much to pack up, and it all fits in the compartment under the seat of his motorcycle. He joins the Avengers as Loki is sent back to Asgard, and when the job is done, he leaves the city. Noise and color fade as he travels west. While he's moving, it's peaceful.

But then comes the uncomfortable business of trying to put together a life that is his, and figuring out what exactly that means now, who Steve Rogers is, after seventy years. Before the ice, before Bucky died, they'd been on the brink of something. And now Steve is left with the vertigo of a future he’d thought he had falling away. Now his future is overwhelming in its singularity, a void he's attempting not to prod at too much.

SHIELD helps him get set up in his new apartment, tries to make him as comfortable as possible, their efforts reminiscent of the room in which he woke up, their assumption that modernity is to be avoided difficult to dissuade. On a surreal shopping trip to IKEA accompanied by SHIELD agents, Steve weakly protests half of the options they suggest. These particular agents seem to have been chosen for their passion for 1940's history and interior design, and even in the futuristic atmosphere of IKEA, their conversation repeatedly drifts to the past. Steve feels almost cruel when he can't answer their questions about the second half of the decade. Perhaps because of the topic of conversation, he finds himself pulled to a record player in one of the display rooms. His fingertips graze the plastic, and behind him the agents exchange meaningful glances. The turntable isn't real though, not for sale, and they move on.

For a couple weeks, Steve lives in a hotel room. When he moves into his apartment, there's one thing he wasn't expecting to find there: On his coffee table, wrapped in a bow, is a record player. There's no note, but Steve knows who it's from- a couple of agents pulling a few strings, and here he is with a link to his past he hadn't realized he needed. In addition to the turntable, SHIELD has spent Steve-doesn't-want-to-know-how-much on an impressive vintage vinyl collection. He sorts through the records slowly, pausing to listen whenever he finds something he likes, or remembers liking.

Two days into this process, he finds it. The sound he makes is probably a laugh, but it's tinged with a kind of desperate sadness. This is hilarious, but he probably couldn't explain why to anyone. Except Bucky. Steve struggles against two opposing impulses- he manages to refrain from hurling the disc at the wall, but only because he's already succumbed to the self-destructive part of himself that needs to listen to it. Right now.

“This is a terrible idea,” he tells himself, but he places the needle at the edge of vinyl as old as he is and lets it spin.

Bucky. He remembers like he's back in their apartment, bare feet on the rough wooden floor. Bucky was always at the record player, switching from song to song, eagerly watching Steve’s face to see how he liked them. Bucky loved this one. Bucky sang to him with a rough quiet voice, his arms wrapped all the way around Steve's body. Bucky loves him. Bucky's fucking dead.

Three and a half minutes later Steve opens his eyes and he's on the floor and his face is wet and his chest feels like the aftermath of an earthquake. He sits with the gentle static of the record's end for a few moments before standing up, taking it off, and numbly returning it to its sleeve.

The record jumps from pile to pile throughout the night. One minute he wants it to mingle with insignificant records, almost not there but still available. The next, he wants it right next to the player. The next, he's going to hide it somewhere and forget about it as much as possible. In the end, it joins the pile of vinyl that will be sorted alphabetically by artist and placed on the shelves underneath his record player. Even tucked away between “In The Mood” and “Paper Doll,” the song follows him all night, into his dreams. For months now, Steve’s mind has been a blank slate in his sleep. But these dreams leave more upon waking than the vague feeling of emerging from cold water. Memories invade, combining his past with fantasies long forgotten; words Bucky moaned in dark rooms and words Steve never said, sunlit days in Brooklyn spent together and nights Steve had assumed they'd always share. Now when he's asleep he's warm again, home again. His dream self smiles and he feels it, a relief in muscles unaccustomed to movements so genuine and unconscious. His body relaxes. His jaw unclenches. His heart starts to flutter.

His life isn't terrible. He's been flirting with stability and this new time and a beginning. He runs and D.C. is beautiful and SHIELD keeps him busy. Throwing himself back in. But still, waking is the most draining part of Steve's day, when the color goes back to normal and his heart quiets and real life settles in. As much as he aches for the world the music brings back to his head, he knows it isn't where he is, and soon he can't let himself go back, can't let reality continue to be the disappointment it resembles every morning.

He's adjusting, he tells himself, when he can't sleep and instead sits on his fire escape with unassuming jazz drifting through the air for hours, waiting until it's a reasonable time to start running. He's adjusting.

_haven’t felt like this my dear_

_since can’t remember when_

__

“Oh, and I think you left your stereo on,” Kate mentions as she heads downstairs.

“Oh, right- thank you,” he replies, the smile falling from his lips as he turns towards his front door.

Steve knows he didn't leave the stereo on. This record, this particular record, has been gathering dust on its shelf since he moved in. He wouldn't have chosen this song. He didn't leave the stereo on.

His Captain America instincts kick in and suppress Steve's irrational hope as the notes drift through his door, but he can't quite stifle lyrics and longing and distraction as they permeate his mind. _You'll never know how many dreams I dream about you._ They're drowning out all conscious thought, paralyzing his brain with a new relevance and leaving him to operate on muscle memory as he enters his own home by way of the window: _Or just how empty they all seem without you._ He almost laughs. A part of Steve, despite knowing that it's never gonna happen, rounds the corner expecting to see Bucky there, smiling at him with the air of someone who pulled off an excellent joke flawlessly. He’s longing for it.

It's not the best state to be in when he finds Director Fury wounded in his living room, SHIELD compromised, practically every semblance of stability he's established since waking up, everything he's trusted and everything he's questioned, crashing down around him. Nick hands him a flash drive, and Steve picks up the mantle. His mind fights to keep Bucky at bay as he pursues the assassin: a fast, masked, metal-armed man unlike anything he’s ever seen.

_never thought that you would be_

_standing here so close to me_

_there’s so much I feel that I should say_

“You can… use anything,” Steve says, ineffectually sweeping his arm across the apartment. Bucky walks through the rooms, winding around bookshelves and trailing fingers against walls. He’s wary, but his movements are careful and soft, and Steve can feel intentionality with every quiet footstep. “Kitchen,” Steve points out as Bucky glances briefly at the patch of linoleum where Nick Fury lay after he was shot, and his eyes flick up through a brand new window to the rooftop where he confirmed the hit. The first time they entered each other’s line of sight in decades. “Eat whatever you want.” Bucky nods, turns his back.

Steve follows him into the living room. He glances at the record player, and his heart skips, thinking of the song that last spun under that needle. Even though he knows it’s unreasonable, Steve can’t help but worry that some part of the Winter Soldier could have heard those notes, and listening to them now could confuse Bucky, mix memories. “There’s a tv over there,” he gestures to the other side of the room, and casually walks towards the turntable, putting “It’s Been A Long, Long Time” back into its sleeve and sliding it among his other records. Steve straightens as he turns around, brushing dusty fingers on his jeans.

“Music?” Bucky asks, watching him closely.

“Yeah,” he smiles, trying not to feel like he’s been caught doing something wrong. “Lots of old favorites, some new stuff I’ve been catching up to.”

Bucky hums tunelessly as he crouches down to flip through records, pulls one out at random- not that song, and Steve sighs with relief- and places it gently on the turntable with the ease of muscle memory. Steve knows not to read anything into this: Bucky is doing good, his brain is adjusting to the therapies and he’s making substantial progress. But while he’s fully capable of processing his thoughts and needs in the moment, Bucky’s memories of the time between his last wipe and when Steve found him are shadowy at best, and as far as they can tell, as far as Bucky has reported, nothing before then has come to light. Nothing besides instincts towards Steve that fluctuate between trust and hatred. So Bucky’s body may remember the feeling of dropping the needle onto vinyl, the soft hissing noise before the first track starts. But Bucky doesn’t.

It’s one of those newer albums Steve picked up at a local record store, where a tattooed employee enthusiastically filled his arms with seventy years of “the good stuff”. An electric guitar strums forcefully, _loudly_. Short bursts of sound wash over them, the percussion building upon itself, and a drawling, masculine voice begins to sing. Bucky’s body is moving with the music, his hair falling in front of his eyes as he bobs his head in time. He looks up at Steve, he grins.

“I like this,” he says. “You have good taste, Rogers.”

“Do you know it?” Steve asks.

Bucky pauses for a moment. “Not until now, I think,” he says. It’s hard for him to tell, Steve knows, between the things he used to know and the things he never knew.

“I like it too,” Steve answers.

“Show me the rest?” Bucky asks, and Steve nods in response, leading him through the newly renovated apartment. It wouldn’t do to be living in a home where one of them had shot holes through the wall and the other had jumped out of a window in pursuit, Stark had reminded him. And the other stuff, well, if Cap thought Tony was going to let him work on breaking the shell of a mostly-under-control former assassin without some real security measures, then he was out of his mind. No bugs, no video inside the apartment, but a response system specifically catered to the wellbeing of _both_ parties. That much was made abundantly clear. The apartment looks as good as new, though Steve has his suspicions that Tony bought out Kate’s- no, _Sharon’s_ \- old studio apartment when SHIELD collapsed. Bucky’s room is bigger than Steve’s now, and there definitely was not a bathroom suite attached to the guestroom the last time Steve had checked. Bucky tosses his bag on the bed, looks around for a moment, and then returns to the living room. He drops into the armchair next to the turntable, leaning back and closing his eyes as the second song on the record starts, slow acoustic guitar accompanying crooning vocals.

Steve stands in the middle of the room for an awkward moment. As always, he feels a bit out of place in his own home, unsure of what to do with himself. Bucky seems more settled than he feels right now. But he might as well do something while he keeps Buck company, so he sits across the room, rummaging around the drawer in an end table until he finds an old sketchbook, a well-sharpened pencil. For a while he leafs through the pages. Even before this whole HYDRA thing went down, it had been a while since he’d drawn. The whole first half of the sketchbook is full of scribblings from his period in Brooklyn. Drawing the world was the only way he could handle it, sometimes. Other times, drawing the past was the only way he could take a break from the present.

“What are you doing?” Bucky asks in the midst of a quiet, instrumental song.

“I like to draw,” Steve says. He holds out the book towards Bucky. “You can look if you want.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and reaches across the room, standing up a little to grab it. It’s so easy to forget, Steve muses as he sits back, watching his hands as he casually twists the pencil between his fingers. This Bucky who isn’t, who isn’t his best friend anymore, isn’t himself anymore, still acts like him. Steve needed this back. He can feel all the gaps between what he needs and what is like a great, sucking absence.

He doesn’t want to pressure Bucky, but he asks anyway. “Recognize anything?”

“Sorry.” Bucky doesn’t look up. His hair is shadowing his face again, but Steve can see the desperate blankness that is becoming Bucky’s specialty. “It’s good, though,” he adds, guilty.

“Thanks,” Steve accepts. When Bucky has finished examining the sketchbook, he gets up to give it back, holding it open to one of the first pages.

“This was really me?” he asks. Bucky has seen pictures, heard stories, looked at artifacts. Nothing has brought him any sense of recognition before.

“I think I got your nose a bit wrong,” Steve says. Bucky just nods, goes back to his armchair. Maybe there’s a hint of a smile on his lips. It’s hard to tell, and Steve doesn’t let himself look for long.

_It’s been a long, long time_

There it is, that goddamn song again, floating through his door, and as Steve fumbles at his keys, panic swells inside him. Bucky has been spectacularly unstable lately. The Winter Soldier’s memories have been coming back more and more. They used to appear only in his sleep, but now they crop up at the strangest triggers. They come with violent outbursts, usually followed by desperate searching for any scrap of the old Bucky, any bit of him that isn’t Winter Soldier. The trust between them has developed enough that Steve can leave the apartment without too much worry, but upon occasion he’s returned to a home that more closely resembles the aftermath of a tornado.

Bucky could need him, Steve knows, and that’s how he manages to steady his hands and get the door open. He notes the lack of immediately visible damage as he places his bags of groceries on the ground. But the music is louder than it has ever been before, and Steve hates every step he takes towards the living room, mind providing a multitude of images for what he might find in there. That time Bucky broke all the mirrors in the house. That time Bucky nearly bludgeoned him to death with a history book. Hell, the time this song was playing and the Winter Soldier fucking _shot Nick Fury._ They all rush at him. He feels cold. It takes him a moment to process the scene that awaits him.

_“Kiss me once then kiss me twice/then kiss me once again,”_ Bucky is singing, tears staining his face, his eyes closed, wearing the largest grin Steve has seen in seventy-some years.

“Buck?” Steve asks. There’s something- different. About the way Bucky is standing. About the way he fills the room. Steve digs his nails into his palms. He can’t get his hopes up. It isn’t fair. This can’t be, after so much time-

“Steve,” Bucky says, and he strides across the room with a burning look in his eyes, takes Steve’s face into both hands, and kisses him. Hard. “I remember,” Bucky murmurs against Steve’s mouth. “I remember, I remember,” he covers his lips in kisses, salty and desperate and deep. Bucky’s hands are in Steve’s hair, the joints of the metal one catch and pull but Steve doesn’t care, just opens his mouth and pulls their bodies closer.

“How?” Steve asks when they manage to draw apart for air. Bucky’s head rests on his shoulder, his body is shaking, and he’s clinging to Steve like he hasn’t seen him in years. Which of course, in a way, he hasn’t.

“I was just looking through your albums,” Bucky explains. “I’d seen it before, but this time- this time I knew. I _needed_ to put it on. I didn’t question it, I just did, and then…” He looks into Steve’s eyes, their faces inches apart. “I remembered.”

Steve chokes back a sob. “Bucky,” he whispers.

“I’m not just Bucky, you know,” Bucky says, brow furrowed. “I’m Bucky, and I’m the Winter Soldier, and I’m whoever the hell I’ve been for the last six months.”

“And I’m Steve, and I’m Captain America, and I’m whoever the hell I’ve been since I woke up,” Steve says.

Bucky smiles grimly. “I have the feeling this is just the beginning of the trouble I’m gonna cause you.”

“You’ve been bringing me trouble since the day I met you,” Steve murmurs, pulling Bucky back into a kiss. Bucky moans and relaxes into the support of Steve’s arms, and for all they know hours or days or years could be passing, as they hold each other, and remember.

****  
  



End file.
